


They Named Their Loss

by voleuse



Category: Doctor Who, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-27
Updated: 2008-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Named Their Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Set between Episodes I and II (movies only). Title and summary adapted from Carol Ann Duffy's _Prayer_.

There was a man Anakin used to know, and each word he let fall felt like a puzzle unsolved. Anakin didn't understand him, nor did he like him.

The man never smiled, not at Anakin.

*

 

_The worlds you will destroy_, he murmured, his fingers twisting against stone. _Like spun sugar and ice, a show. Just to prove you can_.

Anakin watched the man from across the listening pool, the endless tapping of water upon stone the only accompanying music. Everything the man said was like this, poetry and death and insult. Anakin had learned not to respond. They had trained him into the silence he now held.

Master Yoda's cane rapped against the path, but only Anakin startled. He turned, watched Master Yoda amble over gravel and grass until he faced the man. He watched the two of them shift into a slow circle, until the man finally bowed his head and walked away.

"He's not a Jedi," Anakin blurted out.

"Of wisdom, we keep not all," Master Yoda said. He stared at Anakin, a gaze not dissimilar from the man's. "Trust we do, perhaps too much."

Master Yoda trudged away, and Anakin suppressed a shiver.

He waited until all footsteps were mere echoes in his memory, and then he threw pebbles into the pool, one two three.

He didn't stop until water splashed against his feet.

*

 

The swordsmaster handed Anakin a short staff. "Practice the forms," she instructed.

"For how long?" Anakin asked, batting the wood between his hands like a stuttering pendulum.

She was already leaving, and her headdress swung wide as she turned her head. "Until you breathe them."

Anakin gritted his teeth, hefted the staff, and began.

When the man's voice intruded, Anakin blinked sweat from his eyes and found the room darkened. The man leaned against the doorway, his eyebrows raised, and Anakin realized the words hadn't registered. "What?" he asked, half-preoccupied with the blisters on his palms.

"You have focus, I'll give you that." The man enunciated, tracing each word with scorn.

Anakin let the staff slide through his hands, and it struck the floor with a hollow thud. He could feel the blood rushing through him, from his ears to his belly to his toes. "What do you want?"

"A different ending," the man replied. "A different galaxy. The impossible."

"You sound like Master Yoda," Anakin bit out. "Who are you?"

"I'll speak in complete sentences, then?" The man laughed without joy, but Anakin resented it nonetheless. "I'm the Doctor."

Anakin surveyed the man's stance, the slant of his shoulders and the curl of his fingers. "You don't look like a doctor."

"You don't look like what you are, either," he responded.

"I am a Jedi," Anakin said, his voice ringing by rote.

The man pushed out of the doorway, and a lantern's light spilled shadows over his eyes. "Do you think so?" he wondered.

He backed out of the room as Anakin opened his mouth, and all he was left with was the empty air.

*

 

Anakin kneeled before the listening pool and dipped his fingers against its surface. "I am," he said aloud, the words spilling, tumbling against each other.

If he saw the man again, he never knew.


End file.
